


The Measure Of A Man

by typhe



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Class Differences, Drag Queens, Fashion & Couture, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Relationship Negotiation, medieval hipsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 02:47:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: Vanyel decides that Stefen needs new clothes.(Based on macabre_monkey's MPTPverse)





	The Measure Of A Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [macabre_monkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre_monkey/gifts).
  * Inspired by [More Precious than Pearls](https://archiveofourown.org/works/253363) by [macabre_monkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre_monkey/pseuds/macabre_monkey). 



> (it's late, I know. I'm not fast but I'm persistent <3)
> 
> This story is not gonna work unless you've read MPTP, so please, [go read MPTP](https://archiveofourown.org/series/27523). However this story is not actually set in the MPTPverse because Lendel is not gonna die in MPTP. We're an AU of an AU here.  
> Thanks to Kess for beta reading.  
> And to Gilda, who I swear came up with the Purple Object in a comment thread years ago.

Stef, Vanyel had long since decided, never seemed more catlike than when he was ambling towards disaster. It was far too late, they were tired and irritable, and Stef was wearing _terrible clothes_. A melodic yawn became an extravagant stretch that segued elegantly into the sound of ripping fabric, and then Stef was on his feet and cursing and staring malignantly at things he couldn't properly see. "Blast it, I _need_ this shirt - does it look fixable?"

Vanyel pretended to examine it, and shook his head at Stefen's gesticulations. "I wouldn't bother. It doesn't fit you anyway and trying to fix it will only make it worse."

"It fits near enough and it's my _favourite_ ," Stef groused. "It's a good weave, and I had it almost new."

Van shook his head sternly. It was _not_ a good weave. "If it had fit, you wouldn't have torn it. And it was _white_ ," he added. Past tense, firmly so.

"What? Since when have _you_ objected to white?"

"Someone with your complexion needs a hint of colour in the thread - cream, or ivory -"

"Those words mean white," Stef informed him.

He'd no patience for Stef's stubbornness tonight. "You very well know the difference and it doesn't matter in any case. I can get you some better clothes."

"My clothes are fine," Stef muttered, then glanced down again at the ripped seam. "I've had worse. I _have_ ," and his eyes narrowed at Vanyel's doubtful expression. "Does a penny ever enter your hands without you thinking on how to spend it on me?"

Not lately. Not if he had time to think about it at all. Every hint Stef ever made of his past made it more of a preoccupation. It didn't bother him, did it? He always seemed grateful, even when Van's gifts had perplexed him, like Melody. "You get me things too," he reminded Stefen. "You gave me that copy of _Signal Fires And Drums._ "

"You haven't finished reading it," Stef noted. Not nagging. Very carefully not nagging Van to read his favourite book. It lurked guiltily on the nightstand by Vanyel's side of the bed, a bookmark poking out from a point square between its covers. _And when_ , he wondered absently, _did I develop a 'side' of my own bed?_

"I haven't had _time_ ," he sighed. "I _wish_ I'd finished it. I will soon." Stef shifted in suppressed agitation. " _Ashke_ , please. You do more than enough for me besides. That first time you sang _I Saw You O'er The River_ to me meant more than any gift."

It was only the truth. Stef's eyes warmed, with love and flinty arrogance; the lovesong seemed to be all over the Palace now, but Vanyel had heard it first, and he liked to believe he would have admired it even if he hadn't been its unwitting muse. Two days ago, he'd heard a girl singing it in the gardens and had taken a moment to catch his breath. "Fair's fair, then," Stef conceded, a hitch in his voice that hid nothing; and yes, a little kind truth and music could make it fair.

It was hard to adjust to stepping around Stef's erratic pride. It had surfaced far less when they'd been merely friends. "So you'll let me have my tailor make you some new clothes?"

"If you insist. Don't go overboard - the wardrobe's full enough already."

"I should really pass on the things I've not worn in a while -"

"You never wear anything except Whites. You wore Whites half the time we were at Forst Reach! I don't even know why you have so much else."

"Because I haven't had time to get rid of it," he sighed. Much of his clothing was faded and worn, but the prospect of going through it all, picking through memories, was exhausting. And think, he used to _like_ choosing what to wear. "Most of it's too far out of fashion for anyone to want as a hand-me-down."

Stef's eyes narrowed. "I'd noticed that purple surcote -"

"Shut up."

His lover smiled like a cat who'd scented blood. "But I'd love to know what you look like in it -"

"Use your bountiful imagination," he sniffed. "Old as I am, I'd sooner think about dressing you up."

"Not old," Stef replied reflexively - a well-trodden argument - and then he shook his head. "So you did used to wear it?"

"That, and worse," Vanyel replied. It was no good trying to claim any dignity. Stef had never seen that less sombre age of court dress, before the war. Trends had changed quickly, even without considering that Vanyel had come to Haven saddled with his mother's archaic grasp on taste. To Forst Reach, fashion was one of those distant relatives who made rare, brief visits that always ended frostily.

"I can scarcely credit that," Stef replied scathingly. "It would exceed even my capacity for imagination."

"And yet," Van assured him. Oh, but he'd been a clotheshorse. At the time, he'd felt assured of his impeccable taste, but with Stef examining the evidence from twenty years distance, he was at least willing to admit that time had made a fool of him.

Stef looked at him with a hint of wickedness. "So tell me, in your wayward youth what was the most outrageous thing you ever wore?"

"The very most outrageous? Well..." But there was only one answer, now Stef had put it like that. He hesitated, but - should he really hide such a peculiar thing from Stefen? _Could_ he? Vanyel picked up the act, positively drawling. "Well, I once... Hm, picture that reception we threw for the Rethwalleni delegation -"

"Oh Lord and Lady, this sounds good. Were there sashes involved?"

"One or two." He made himself smile lightly, against the clamour of his nerves. "Do you remember that blue monstrosity that Shavri forced Jisa into?"

Stef gaped.

Vanyel ploughed on before he lost the nerve he was barely grasping. "Much like that, but maybe missing one or two tiers of skirt and with puffed sleeves rather than fitted ones." Tension finally silenced him, drawl falling flat as Stef's expression stayed blank. Was he shocked? Revolted? Was Stef about to laugh at him? Van turned away, just in case. _I could pretend I was joking. I shouldn't have told him, I've never told anyone..._

"Really?" asked Stef. " _Puffed_ sleeves? Isn't there enough of you in the shoulders as it is?"

"There really wasn't, then. I was barely sixteen," Van explained quietly, daring to look him in the eye again.

"Were you now? Still - I can't picture it. You should have gone with fitted sleeves or better yet, with your neckline, why not something entirely sleeveless -"

"That," he declared, drawling again, "would be _immodest,_ " and he grabbed Stef by the arms as they laughed together. That quickly became a kiss, and he threaded a hand through the gap in Stef's clothes, as Stef's strong hands kneaded at his shoulders through linen - good linen, not like the things Stef owned, not patched or worn thin or ill-fitting. Stef looked well enough in his uniforms and he'd shown no care for fashion - _but he never had the choice. My indulgence in fashion was far from his reach._

"I would have really liked to see that," Stef admitted at last. _He would?_ Van hadn't expected that at all. "Can I say, I never took you for the kind of man who'd - do that."

"It was a long time ago," he replied. "Why? Do you think it's - queer?"

Stef snorted. "No, I didn't think you'd dare. I should have realised you'd chance anything for the sake of beauty."

Vanyel smiled, with some relief. "If you think I have my vanities now..." He shook his head. Yes, he'd been overly concerned with his appearance then - but that wasn't how he'd found himself taking to dresses. It was harder to explain than that, and he wondered if he would have if he could.

"Suppose I make you a deal," Stef said slowly, eyes fluttering, as much of a warning as if his claws had been out. "I will let you buy me new clothes, but only if you _promise_ that one day, I am going to see you in a dress."

In years of diplomacy Vanyel had never laid eye on a proposal quite so shockingly unfavourable, the details of the damnable offer only exceeded in scandal by its terms. "So I can indulge you, but only if I promise to indulge you?"

"I knew you'd agree," Stef smiled brightly. "Now, help me out of this wreck."

 

Walking across the Palace grounds, Van had dared to take Stef's hand in his for a while. Not so in the city streets, and he found his fingers missing the feel of it, Stef's small square palm and the gnarly feel of calluses brushing atop his left hand. Van walked a pace ahead; it was late afternoon on market day, and Stef stepped in his shadow, happy to let his lover part the crowds for him. Contrary to Stef's teasing, he was not wearing Whites, which would have made this outing quite a different proposition. Stef had goaded him into dressing up a little; his tunic was not in this year's fashion, but it was one of the nicer summer-weight ones that he had, midnight blue and cut to emphasise his shoulders. Stef's was pale grey, and the colour didn't suit him at all. Van had refrained from telling him so. It wasn't like Stef had much choice, given how little he owned.

He glanced over his shoulder, and found Stef looking wry. Tunic colour aside, his lover looked quite at home in the city, his sleeves hanging loose in the warm air, his eyes crisscrossing the street, curious and wary and alive with his inner music. Van had always felt a little overwhelmed by busy city streets, even back when he'd been young and eager to find something, lose something, in Haven's most dubious quarters. 

They'd rarely left the Palace together since returning from Forst Reach; in springtime they'd ranged further, even riding out of the city for that ill-fated visit to the hot springs that Stefen still teased him about. Lately, keeping to Van's quarters had held more appeal. _Stef deserves more, but I've only so much time and energy to spare for him, and he knows exactly how he wants me to use it._ Other wishes had withered into regrets with the autumn leaves.

Stef caught his eye, squinting a little in the low sunlight. "You never did explain why you want to visit your tailor in person."

"You have unusual colouring," Van replied. An evasion; it wasn't a regular arrangement, and Stef knew it. He could have pleaded his uncouth liking for commerce. In Forst Reach, trade had been a rare fairtime treat, and he'd delighted in his dealings with clothiers, luthiers and booksellers. But that would have been equally far from the whole story. "He's an unusual tailor," he added. "And a friend." 

"I see," Stef mused. "You know Count Xanier? Last winter, he was asking around trying to find out where you'd come by a certain winter hood that he found fetching. No one seemed to know," and he raised a sly eyebrow.

"Yes, I know Xanier," he said coyly. The Count was quite the most flamboyantly dressed man in the Court. Vanyel had once mistaken that for a signal that - well, it had all been resolved discreetly and politely, and years later he'd once impersonated Xanier to scare off Father Leren. "Well, I'm glad you deigned to tolerate a little dress-up this evening," he said, hoping to see the beatific smile that Stef was usually so generous with.

But it wasn't in evidence. 

The city seemed so merry; still summer-warm, with the sun just touching the rooftops. Too early for streetlamps, too late for market or schoolhouse. A group of children ran past them, playing and yelling like birds.

"I could have fixed that shirt," Stef muttered, as if to circle the question of his tolerance.

"And left it fitting you even less well, and all the more likely to rip again," Van said firmly. "You spend half your evenings fixing your clothes and it'll cost all of a few silver to replace it."

"You know what I think about whenever you say 'a few silver'?" Stef snapped. "It makes me think about counting everything and I don't want to do that again."

"Whatever do you mean?" Van asked him, feeling like he'd leaned on a bruise. Stef stared at the cobbles as if his eyes could pry them apart. "Stef, I want to know."

Stef glanced at him doubtfully, and stepped close to him. "I mean," he took a long breath. "Back then, _a few silver_ was a month's rent. I was always fighting Berte for pennies - when she'd had her dreamerie I'd steal money from her that was mine to begin with. For tuppence I could get enough to eat, so I felt rich if I could hide fivepence in a day - then I wouldn't have to try for a day or two, but gods help me if she found my stash. I made plenty of coppers, far more than I ever saw. Dreamerie went for usually tenpence a dose, twelve in winter. She'd want it three times a day - or as many as she could get. If the money was short, she'd get cheap liquor instead, and then she got ugly. So rent weeks were the worst - we sublet a room and had to pay every month because no one would trust Berte to pay quarterly. One place, she blew the rent money and they put us out at midwinter," and his whole sense of Stefen turned knife-hard. Past cold, past anger. "Our last room was three silver a month - that's nasty steep and it was full of rats, but it was the only place we weren't turned away. That last week each month, she always hated me for eating, hated me for every penny I made like it was _my_ fault it wasn't a silver. She hated taking anything away from having her gods damned dreamerie. Lynnell found me the day after a rent day. I ran off to eat while Berte was higher than a hawk and she grabbed me off the street."

Van dared to brush the back of his hand against Stef's, and he raised his empty gaze from the ground. _He almost never talks about this._ Van tried to reach past his numbness, his remembered hunger. _He was never kept safe, or cared for - not by anyone but himself._ "Stef, if you'd rather go home -"

"It's not that," Stef sighed. "It's just, you talk of a few silver like it's nothing to anyone."

They walked on in uncomfortable silence as Van thought on his words. He had huddled and starved through winters out on the border, and he'd counted pennies when he was pretending to be a minstrel _\- but I've always been looked after, and it's years since I last had the time to spend my stipend. I never knew anything of poverty before I met Stef._ "You're right - I won't miss it. I've rarely even had to think about money. And I know how fortunate that is, but there's nothing I'd rather do with what I have than spend it than on someone I care about." He dared to meet Stef's wide eyes. No, he wasn't usually so forward in public, but the streets felt anonymous, full of strangers who had better things to do than listen to them argue. "Besides, a little flair might help you make your name."

Stef flashed a brief smile, and Van Felt his urge to take his hand, or hold him - Stef slipped his thumbs through his belt, as though it were an effort to keep his hands to himself. "That could be true. I've nothing that's been fit to me except my uniform tunics. I get clothes people's sons have outgrown, mostly. That shirt came from the undercook in trade for playing at her daughter's wedding." He shrugged off the detail, shaking sun-flamed hair from his eyes.

"Even when I was young, Mother always said yes if I told her I needed to buy new clothes. She was so keen for me to dress well that I sometimes _pretended_ I wanted clothes then spent her money on music books."

"She didn't think a few new songs would win you a wife?"

"I could never talk to her about songbooks. She has _no taste_." 

Stef laughed. "Says the man with a purple surcote."

"I am going to get rid of that," he declared. "If only to make you talk of something else." 

"None shall mock the Great Vanyel Demonsbane," Stef muttered, and Vanyel sighed dramatically. _Did the gods send me Stef to prevent me from taking myself too seriously?_

He looked sidelong at his beloved, only to catch Stef looking back at him. Maybe not. Stef wasn't smiling any more, but his eyes held that radiance that Van was sure he would never get used to. _The look that says he knows me. And that I know him. And that for all my foibles and vanities, he loves me._

Stef hadn't asked where they were going, though he had seemed a little surprised when Van strayed past the commercial fringe of the well-heeled quarter near the Palace gates. He'd made no comment as they passed the leatherworkers and the temple and the neighbourhood of Hardornen exiles. It was when Vanyel turned left as they passed the first of the theatres that he noticed a quickening in Stef's steps. No fine lord would meet his tailor here so close to sundown. He used to skulk and sneak his way here in years past; he'd been afraid to be seen turning down this street, obsessed with the thought that he'd been followed. Even when he'd told himself that everyone knew what he was. They could at least think him one of the _good_ ones, who would stay chaste and alone rather than be seen in a place like this.

Stef had no such worries; there was an easy smirk on his face, as if every stranger on this street might be a friend. _He's never cared a damn what anyone thinks he is._

He brushed the back of Stef's hand with his own again, and knocked on the window below the tailor's sign.

 

He was expected. He pushed open the door, which set the bell to ringing, and led Stef in by one hand. The interior of the tailor's shop was yellow with light filtered through huge windows of cloudy, cheap glass. The air felt a little stifling. The front room was neat and swept clean - kept that way by an undertailor, who Van knew would have left at noon for market. The steel mirror was so polished that Vanyel had to avert his gaze where it caught the sun; his eyes wandered the welcome, familiar sight of the back wall behind the counter, made of dozens of pigeonhole shelves, each of which was home to one or more bolts of cloth.

Van heard movement from the backroom. "One moment - let me pin this down -" The door swung open, and Stef made a grunt of surprise.

" _Micah?_ " 

Micah looked as warm at the edges as a much-loved book. His shirt was laced three inches lower than would pass for formal and the tunic he wore over it was sky-blue, with an elegant asymmetric cut to its hem. "Oh - Stefen?" Van looked from one to the other, and Micah smiled at him with some delight. _It's been, what, two years?_ They saw each other infrequently enough that the sight of him was always a surprise; in his head he kept an image of Micah that was younger, higher-voiced and yet to grow into that full arrogant flower of his talents. Micah now looked as warm as the edge of a well-loved book. "You mentioned a strange looking young man -" _I did not put it like that -_ "I had no idea you were acquainted with Stef."

"I had no idea _you_ were acquainted with Stef -"

"I think everyone in this quarter is," and Micah winked at Stef. "Didn't we meet at the theatre?"

"No, at the Maiden," Stef corrected him. "Then you told me to go see _Til E'er We Part_ , remember? And you said -"

"- that it had the best set the Spiral Dramatic Troupe had ever built, and the costumes - Van did you see it? Of course you didn't - and those costumes - it was only a pity about -"

"Everything else," Stef finished. "I brought my roommate too and I paid eightpence for _each_ of us. Though he did admire the Queen of Winter." 

"Did he? I made his bustle," Micah glowed with pride.

"I know. Well, Medren was a good sport about it. I wasn't," Stef said accusingly, as if every one of those sixteen pennies were still stuck in his craw.

Micah had evidently had the same thought. "You're only ever serious about pennies," he groused. "But you're here to get dressed up, so I'd thank you not to trouble me about dramatics."

"Yes ma'am no ma'am," Stef replied politely, and he turned to Vanyel in incredulity. "Micah makes your _clothes_?"

Micah grinned. "It's so disreputable. I really never meant to get wrapped up in a trade." Van knew it was true, which made it somehow all the more inevitable. If there was one way in which Micah could have shocked his mother's Haven high society set more than by being _shay'a'chern_ , it was by _working_ , with his _hands_. "I used to take care of the costumes for the Merry Street Players, and I had to fix so many things - taking darts in and out, moving hems, you know, and a lot of the time I had to make things from scratch. Especially for the boys who were playing the ladies. I got good at that," and his hand traced a curve in the air. "Well, a few of them _were_ ladies and asked me for things to wear for the everyday. And then there were men who wanted something new to make a big entrance at Court," and he glared significantly at Van.

"Purple surcote," Stef muttered.

"You kept that thing?" Micah turned to Vanyel. "Bold. We all were, then," and he shook his head at Stef's incredulous expression. "You've only seen the Court now it's all groaning solemnity. They used to know how silly they were - playing the game was almost unbearable." Van remembered it too well - the showboating and backbiting he'd happily given up for Lendel's company. He rarely though about how much Court must have changed since then - grown away in some other direction from him. Micah threaded in and out of those disparate worlds, reminding him of the past, sometimes too much. 

Micah shook his head slowly. "You and _Vanyel_. I feel like I'm in the third act of one of Bard Sulvan's comedies. I could engage in so much blackmail -"

"Too late," Stef grinned. "Whatever it is, he already knows."

"Oh, it wasn't _you_ I was threatening to spill the dirt on. His coin is better than yours." Micah couldn't know the hurt behind Stef's laughter, and he blithely reached for his roll of notched leather. "So. Let me get your measurements." He directed Stef to slip off his light tunic and raise his arms, loose in one of his ill-fitting shirts. Micah went about Stef's waist, his back, his shoulders, taking the measure of him in every way Vanyel could conceive of, including some he couldn't imagine mattering at all. He scrawled down numbers as he went, and frowned at Stef's simple grey breeches. "You're too slim in the hips for those. You can only draw something in so far, you know?" 

Stef didn't reply. His face betrayed nothing but he seemed unsure of himself, if Van were to take a guess. Micah turned to look over his collection of cloth, and Van couldn't resist the urge to join him - in his youth this had always his favourite part of shopping, finding beautiful new weaves, new dyes. Combing the fairs at Forst Reach, or the Greenbriars market, finding colours he'd never seen before, then cajoling his mother's ladies into embroidering every hem and sleeve. Micah had, gently, guided his sense of style back in line with Haven high fashion - but always with a little flair, a height beyond what the average wife-seeking pomps would dare.

And sometimes a petticoat, but never outside that triangle of streets between the tailoring shop, the theatre and the Maiden.

"You'll not suit purple," Micah said thoughtfully.

"I was picturing a dark green," Van told him. "Or that midnight blue you know I adore."

"No. Too cold - he's got completely different tones to yours. You don't want anything that would fight his hair for attention. If you want to be bold, we could try the maroon taffeta - that's the kind of red he could get away with. Do they make you wear Bardic scarlets these days?" Micah turned and studied Stef again, wincing at the thought. "It could be worse, you could have been a Herald. You would look awful as a Herald." Micah reached into cubbyholes, pulling out clippings. "Tell me which of these you like. I'll figure out a style that works for the weave."

He thrust his selection into Stef's frozen hands. Tunic fabrics; velvets, close-woven ramies, fine winter wool. Stef rubbed a finger back and forth over the aforementioned taffeta, watching its colour shift in the light. "This is silk." Stef's wondering words were met with a perplexed look from Micah, as if to say, _what else would it be?_ Stef draped the swatch of fabric over his forearm, shifting it back and forth, as if he'd not thought to touch it before. He must have - there were enough oddments of it in the wardrobe - the wardrobe full of things Vanyel rarely wore, because he rarely wore anything but Whites.

 _I'm such a fool_ , he thought, but Stef's eyes met his and all that native unease had transmuted into curiosity. "I'd love to see you in that," he told his lover. It had been a long time since he'd felt so excited by fashion - picturing how it would look, how it would feel, not against his skin but Stefen's -

"Am I your doll?"

Stef's voice hid a curved knife. Micah might think it merely a lover's cattiness but the vitriol was sufficient to make Vanyel take a step back. "I - don't feel you must listen to me," he replied graciously, while some wounded part of him seethed. _Damn it, I_ asked _if you really wanted this. I was only trying to help because you looked -_ Nervous, but when had Stef ever stayed nervous when he could take control instead? Stef waved the slip of green velvet. "I really like this one," he said. "And..." He looked to the mirror, held the taffeta to his neck, and then another piece - a deep brown twill that Vanyel had been ready to dismiss as drab and dowdy. It seemed to come alive in his hand; he looked as warm as autumn leaves.

Micah began to sketch out a shape on his scrap of paper. "That velvet will hang nicely. That brown, though, where the colour's not so striking, the shape of it could be."

"So long as there's no trailing sleeves," Stef said firmly. "They're a bastard to play in."

"Noted," said Micah, his hand twitching with ideas. "And shirt fabrics..." He laid out a few more swatches - different weights of linens, and two silks, one fine and one raw. Van was satisfied to note that none of them were _really_ white. "You should have at least one in the heavier linen. It'll be winter before you know it." Van watched Stefen stroke the raw silk with his thumb, tasting its texture. "That one's warmer than it looks," Micah told him.

"I hear high collars are in?"

"In linen, not silk," Micah told him. "You can't make silk stand up that way. So when high collars come back I always suspect the noble houses must be close to bankrupt." Vanyel shot him a look, but Micah snorted. "Too on the nose, am I? But it would suit you," he speculated. Van silently pictured Stef's lithe, changeling figure under soft silk, warm and beautiful. He couldn't wait to see it. "So would that be two shirts -?"

Stef glanced at Van, frozen again, not sure what he could take or how. "Three," Van replied smoothly. "One raw silk, and two linen - one for summer and one for winter. And the two tunics with breeches to match," and Micah was already tearing corners from the swatches, pinning them to his notepaper. "I'll pay you now - that way you can send them to the Palace as soon as they're ready."

"Gods forfend you leave the Palace again to call for them," Micah rolled his eyes, then frowned at Stef in thought. "You're not a tall fellow, I can save a little on the cloth. Call it a sovereign and five silver." Van heard a sharp gulp behind him as Stef barely suppressed his horror. The figure was a hair more than Van had anticipated, but he set few limits on his impulses when it came to Stef's comfort. _I've money enough to indulge him, and then some. Whereas I've little time, strength, or anything else I might offer instead._ He counted out the coins from his pocket, and slipped them into Micah's hands. "Give me a few weeks, I'll have them all sent over. And anything for you today?" Micah looked to Van in bland innocence, clearly not assuming Stef knew all his secrets.

"Maybe." It had been a long time since Micah had last let him loose in the theatre, but his ready grin told Vanyel that he was well prepared. "Do you have anything for me to try on?"

"I might have grabbed a couple of things last night," Micah grinned.

Van didn't know what to say to Stef - it had been so long since there had been a third person in on their secret, but Stef's eyes danced with anticipation and his becursed curiosity. Stef never wanted an explanation when he could see for himself instead. Which was fortunate, as this time Van didn't really have one. He craved frilled skirts and lace right now the way he would crave a hot meal and a bath at the end of a long day's ride. Manliness was so _tiresome_ , so forced and confining. 

Micah evidently didn't care what Stef thought. "Come on now, let me lace you up," he ordered, and led Van into the shop's backroom. 

 

It was much more chaotic than in the shopfront. Back here, Micah's mercurial nature had full rein, a whirlwind of colours and textures and particularly of _ideas_ , theatrical or courtly or perverse. Vanyel blinked at the strange figures in the shadows - dresses and suits handing from stands, some half-finished or in disrepair. To his surprise, one looked to be a wedding gown, its crimson trail kept off the floor by pins. There were notes, measurements, pinned to every outfit, plus a few more stuck into the walls.

Micah swept a few scraps from the very crowded desk and affixed Stefen's measurements there. "Did I hear him insinuate that you don't look good in purple?"

"He's never seen me in purple."

"That's that, then." Micah opened the wardrobe door at the back of all the chaos and produced a long and deceptively simple satin dress, the kind that made a statement via its shape and fall rather than embellishment. Not quite Vanyel's preferred style, though he would admit that the kinds of frills he was drawn to looked antiquated now, and it was such an elegant dress. At his height, it would trail on the floor. "It will suit you even better since your hair's changed," Micah mused.

Van sighed. He knew he didn't look so old; in fact, he fancied Micah's face was ageing faster than his, though whether that was down to his own use of magic or Micah's of cosmetics he wouldn't guess. He stripped to his smallclothes quickly, feeling unexpectedly awkward - it had been a while since Micah had seen him naked - he'd no new scars, it had been years since he'd last acquired any new scars, but Micah had known him with none at all, not even that oldest pair on his wrists; it was strange to think that he'd seen what Stefen never would.

It was so hard to look past the next few days, never mind the next year or many years. Micah helped him into a padded slip-dress and positioned a short corset around his waist. "You and _Stefen_ ," he muttered again, as if this fact were still so improbable it might have evaporated by now.

"You must have known him longer than I have," Van wondered. Micah had known Tylendel longer than he had, too.

"Since last summer." Van nodded. "Then yes, but I dare say not so well. I didn't know anyone knew him well. I thought I might, but then I found out he'd told four different life stories to four different fellows, and," Micah paused uneasily. "Van, are you sure about him?"

Vanyel's hand scrunched frantic over lace, clumsily straightening his petticoat about his hips. _Only Micah would ever ask._ Most everyone else had either accepted their relationship by now, or determinedly ignored it. "I know he's young," Van began.

Micah snorted. "I mean, you trust him?"

Stef had a way of appearing to be an open door, and to step inside was to enter a forest of mirrors. _And he is young. There's so much he doesn't know about me yet, or himself. So much he's never had to face._ "More than I trust almost anyone."

"Lord and Lady," he murmured. "So it's serious. I could tell it's serious."

Van's hands shook as he pulled the petticoat's drawstring tight. "You could?"

"Yes - Van - I've seen you try before. I've seen you fool yourself along. I've not seen you like this, since - well. And Stef is _letting_ you."

 _Is it so obvious?_ Van felt reassured on a level so peculiar it was close to appalling. He had no perspective - he didn't know what Stef had been like with his other lovers - _only that he swore he'd not felt this way about any of them._ And if Micah judged it was true... 

Micah stepped up to him, inviting Vanyel to step into the dress. "Stand up straight," he instructed, and pulled the ties tight behind Van's back. Once Van was trussed up to his satisfaction, Micah gathered Van's silvered hair in his hands, sweeping it into a ribbon and fixing it in a curl against his head with a little grove of pins. "How about a bit of makeup?"

Van nodded, and he walked carefully to the undertailor's desk, remembering how to breathe fast and shallow, take dainty steps with grace. He sat gently, and let Micah dab him with powder and paint. Purple to edge his eyes. Satisfied with his creation, Micah held out a hand to help him stand. "Take care of him," he said softly.

Van felt the swish of his skirt-tail on the floor, and he turned - and where a turn became a twirl, he couldn't say. Some fine line between fear and joy where exaltation bloomed inside him. Like magic. 

He held that spirit fast against his nerves as he opened the door to the front again.

Stef stood by the window, seeming preoccupied with his thoughts. A fearful moment passed before he noticed Vanyel's presence - that betraying whisper as he moved - and then Stef gasped as if the air in the room had vanished. Van curtsied just low enough that they were of a height, and he felt Stef searching him with delight, reading his strange artifice with as much excitement as if it were a new song.

"Oh stars, you look wonderful," Stef laughed lovingly, and sang, _"Too high, as far as any star, her station is to mine, too wide that space to e'er embrace -"_

Vanyel span on his feet again. Stef had instilled the overwrought song with such energy and admiration that Van could only be dutiful to its rhythm. Stef stepped close and Vanyel took his outstretched hands - small, rough fingers twined around his. Vanyel always fancied their warmth held a flicker of strings. "I'm not much of a dancer," his lover admitted.

Van hadn't known that before.

 

Outside, and back in his own clothes - _himself again_ , as Micah was wont to say - he found Stef looking troubled again. Something he hadn't wanted to say or show in front of Micah. "What is it?" Van asked him. Better to ask now than to hoard up another argument.

"You didn't even _haggle_."

"That would be unseemly."

"Micah has no idea what seemliness _is_." Stef's eyes were accusing, and guilty. "And when did we last spend a _seemly_ moment together?"

 _Fleeing a storm after we arrived at Forst Reach_ , and the thunderclouds rolled in his mind again; the last shadows of what he'd repressed about his feelings for Stef. Whatever else he still had to put first, he wouldn't keep secrets from Stefen any more. 

But he felt oddly vulnerable. He found he was checking minutely over his shields, as if they stood on a battleground, not a crowded street full of market day revellers. "I have my habits, _ashke_. Micah wouldn't cheat me."

Stef tutted, certain that some fundamental principle had been broken. "I love you, but sometimes I realise how much of you I'm not used to yet."

And there it was. Not a direct inquiry, but it would be better to treat it as such. "It was Micah who started me on that - well, not quite - but he was the one who convinced me I could try it in public. After so many lectures from Father or Leren about _manliness_ , I used to think it a fine insult against - everything I was supposed to be. I never felt like I really was a girl," he explained. "But I knew I wasn't anything they wanted. I'd have rather looked beautiful and have someone -" _Lendel_ "- sweep me off my feet. To high hell with being the kind of man they told me to be." _And they still do_ , was the heart of his frustration. _That hero of a dozen excruciating songs, who you thought so good and mighty. The Great Demonsbane, for stars' sake._

"I see what you mean." Stef tilted his head, trying to put the pieces together. "I didn't even know you'd ever spent time in this part of town."

"Not since I was younger." Something like the age Stef was now. "At first I was relieved to be around other shaych men. I found out I could have anyone I wanted. And I soon realised, it wasn't what I wanted." _I was frightened to fall in love again._

_I was frightened I never would._

"I didn't work that out as fast," Stef replied, and took Vanyel's hand. Van reflexively looked around them, but anyone would assume a young man and an older man on this street together were lovers. He squeezed Stef's hand gently.

"Anyway, it got too strange once everyone knew my name." Not just here, either - there was a reason he'd become so lonely. He hated to feel the awe and fear he provoked, and it had become so hard to get to know someone, and he'd never been interested in not knowing his lovers. Stef, he knew, had been less discriminating.

"You can't be the only one," Stef frowned.

"Shaych heralds, you mean? There's a few of us - not many, none so prominent." Not a single other Herald-Mage since he'd been Chosen, as best he knew. And then there had been all those damned songs. He had become more and more _different_ , which was a sour feeling to have when seeking company. "It wasn't just that I was a Herald," he tried to explain.

"I know. You're the only one of you." 

Stef flashed him that propriatary smile he knew too well, and for a moment it chased away the feeling - the memory - of seeing people become _afraid_ of him. _Herald-Mages who found out I was shaych, or shaych men who found out I was a powerful mage._ It took a very particular kind of person to be comfortable with both. "I kept in touch with Micah, and a few other old friends," he continued, which was sort of true. It was years since he'd paid social calls, and his dealings with Micah had withered to the largely impersonal matter of new clothes. Until tonight.

Stef's smile was injected with that curiosity that usually proved dangerous. "So have you slept with him?"

Van sighed, and rolled his eyes. "Alright. Yes. Only twice. We weren't very compatible." _Just lonely. Just mourning, in a way._

"I can see how that would be," Stef mused.

They walked on a dozen paces before the slant of his words reached Van's hindbrain. " _You've_ slept with him?"

"Once," Stef replied. Van knew full well that there were not many people who Stef had been to bed with _more_ than once. "Does that bother you?"

"He's..." _He's my age. Just barely older. Stop trying to goad me into hypocrisy. Gods, were you yet born when we -?_ Memories of Micah - clothed, for once, only in candlelight - danced in his mind. _Micah and Stef_ , and he knew it for a different Micah, but in his mind Stefen lay entwined with that temporal ghost. _At least he looks older than me_ , and then he revolted that he could lay such spite onto a friend. And if Van didn't look so aged, that didn't mean much. _I'm a thousand times more worn down than Micah. I could envy any man my age who can still laugh like Micah, still enjoy his life so much._

Stef's smirk vanished, and he reached for Van's other hand. "Look - how about we stop at the Dancing Maiden before we head home? They all know me there - I used to play songs there while friends drank - so you'd be less the exalted hero and more. Well. My partner. If you want," and in Van's pain-clouded sight Stef looked as wide-eyed and unsure as Van had ever known him.

The Maiden had been Lendel's preferred haunt. 

Those nights they'd dared slip out together flickered through his mind, a secret thread slipping in and out of the tiny, tense world they had lived in together. The Maiden lived on her own time; the fears and false promises of Palace life never interrupted her. They'd meet Micah there or 'Lendel's other friends, or sometimes it was just the two of them. He thought of their favourite table, by the window - Van had been fascinated to see that strange inverted world go by outside. He could almost taste that sour ale, smell the wood-smoke. He remembered Lendel talking avidly of the minstrel who played his pipe there on market days and how people would dance, however they liked, and Vanyel had, with such trepidation, promised to dance with him there sometime.

They never had.

It was only a street away. Maybe he imagined he heard a piper in the distance. "Not tonight," he whispered. 

Stef's face fell, and he dropped Van's hand. "Then let's go home."

 

They walked back in silence. Vanyel could feel Stefen's mood shifting, propelled hither-thither by roiling thoughts, which Van would never know the forms of unless Stef chose to share them. Usually, he did. Stef's face was unreadable when he wanted it to be; was he aggrieved? Amused? Hurt? Van wished he were sure. _He shares so much out loud that I don't realise how reassuring it is until he turns quiet._

 _I should have gone with him to the Maiden. I can never do anything he really wants or needs. I can barely even spend time with him, and when I do, something always goes wrong._ It was hard to smother the feeling that, given the many ways he failed to be a satisfactory partner, Stef was bound to find a better one soon enough. Love wasn't everything. He could never doubt that Stef loved him, but if they weren't compatible - if he hadn't the time or the ability to make Stef happy, and all his attempts went wrong - what was the point? They'd stay together out of love for a few months or a year, and then some final straw would snap their fragile connection across the spine.

He could only ever have one moment of this. If he thought about how long it could last, he'd go mad.

It was past sunset when they reached the Palace gates, and he reached for Yfandes' presence, but she was napping contentedly in her warm stable. Autumn had come gently this year. The goldenoaks were the colour of the horizon; the wind had yet to shake them bare. Stef set a quick pace, crunching leaves underfoot. The river ran its lazy course ahead of them, dividing the feral lands of Companion's Field from the Palace gardens beyond.

As they stepped off the bridge, Stefen grasped his wrist.

Touch was how Stef spoke when he was out of words. 

His fingers rode up under Vanyel's loose sleeve, and he determinedly steered Vanyel downriver. "Where - _oh_." Van's eyes alighted on the garden grottoes. He turned his hand in Stef's grip, and probed ahead of them with his mind - but they were all deserted, too late for shade-seekers and too early for lovers, at least, lovers with any semblance of tact.

 _Lendel always wanted to_ \- and Stef's touch was enough to send thought away, along with the memory of Yfandes wrapped about his shattered pieces. _If I told him no_ , and yet he didn't want to. Maybe it was the coming of night or their solitude. Somehow Stef was ransacking his dreams, slipping his fingers around unmarked treasures.

Each grotto was an upturned cup, with an arched entryway and the top of the dome left open and trailed with ivy. Stefen gave him a look brimming with lust and pushed Van against the arch of the first one they came to. "I don't want to go straight home," he explained, leaning tight into Van against the stone. "I want you now."

Van bent his head to meet Stef's urgent kisses, and felt like his veins had caught on fire. He pulled Stef inside, drew him down to the earth as they kissed, til they embraced on a bed of thick moss. Lying together, he watched that catlike smile steal across Stef's face. As if his lover was looking straight through him, all frills and pretenses cut aside, seeing what was left at the end of all that. "Not so modest," he murmured, and he ran his callused fingers over Vanyel's throat.

Van grabbed Stef's hand in his and pinned it to the earth between them. 

In years past, he'd had a few very attractive lovers. Handsome men, tall or well-built, with faces so fine they seemed copied straight from the woodcuts in his mother's novels. 

The pads of Stefen's fingers held more allure to him than all of them combined. 

_(Save one. Save only one.)_

He kissed the tip of the smallest of Stef's thin fingers, and the next, and then took the middle one between his teeth. Stef - _I gave him but an inch_ \- thrust three fingers in his mouth and leaned close as Vanyel suckled them. 

It was the gentle, unstoppable force of his eyes that left Vanyel gasping, yielding. The fingers pulling down his jaw had little to do with it. Stef's mouth closed over his upper lip, treacherously soft.

_That's you. Where there's no path, you make one. I closed my door to you at night for months and I never kept you out._

Stef's hand withdrew, and Vanyel stared back at him, slack-jawed. He felt broken skin at the corner of his lip. Thin, copper taste of blood running into his mouth. Spit-damp fingertips caressing his neck, and he curled against them as if they were everything. _I can't admire any part of you without being consumed by it._

"What's wrong?" Stef asked him. Toying with him, lips at Vanyel's earlobe.

"Please," and with most men, that would have been enough. "Touch me." He could feel Stef's smirk around a maddening mouthful of his ear. _We're lifebonded and you make me_ tell you _when you know damn well how I want you. You want words from me. You want to hear how much I want you_ , and giving Stef what he wanted felt so _good_.

Stef rolled half atop him, hand running from neck to collarbone to flicker over Vanyel's nipple through his shirt. His erect cock was carelessly shifting against Vanyel's thigh, as if all he wanted was to shower Vanyel with infuriating kisses and touches. Van ground his hips upward against him, and Stef grunted and slipped a hand between them, palm sliding back and forth over Van's cock and the too much, too little contact through two layers of cloth left Van gasping, "Please, yes," and Stef cupped him, unlaced him. _Touch me_ \- and the close of Stef's hand around his cock was all, everything he needed. For a breathless second, until he needed _more. And you know it_ \- Stef's callused hand moved on him like a dancer. Stef was alway so deft with him, deceptively gentle, forceful only when he wanted to be. Only when Van needed him to be. 

Stef's spare hand reached behind his balls, and Van felt two dry fingertips at his entrance. He reached a hand behind Stef's head and pulled him close to kiss him. _I need more of you. As much as I can have._

Stef's fingers slipped between their lips. Van suckled desperately, and Stef's other hand travelled indolently up and over his cock. He shifted into the maddening motion. Two knuckles twisted between his teeth. His underclothes and breeches were tangled about his thighs. _And you're still fully clothed, and you do this to me_ \- and the way Stef looked back at him could have torn him open. Clawing past his secrets, reaching deep into him. I want more - and Stef knew it, slid a wet finger over his chin, rolled Vanyel down on his back. He reached, slipped a finger inside him and it _wasn't enough._ Stef was _playing_ with him.

He turned his cheek against the coarse moss, mumbling something he barely understood himself.

Stef paused. "What did you say?" he asked?

 _I love your hands_ , he thought, but words were so hard to reach. "Don't stop," and Stef looked at him with such joy that Van wondered if he'd somehow heard, unbidden. _I love you -_

Stef slipped in a second finger, and slowly shifted them deeper. The palm of his free hand ran the length of Van's cock, and Van swore he felt every ridge, every hollow, grazing back and forth over the head. Van's eyes rolled back, and between threads of ivy he saw the stars coming out. 

He curled half-upright, and reached up to brush tangled hair aside from his lover's face. He pulled out a twisted leaf. A forest-god, come from the earth and kneeling over him, taking him with his strange and strong hands. It felt so good, so perfectly right to have Stef's hands on him and in him, out here on the ground bare yards from all that was civilized. He'd never loved anyone so wildly. So much.

Then Stef's fingers curled inside him and he wrapped his hand tight and rhythmic, and Van watched, transfixed, as Stef bent his head, and at first his tonguetip only flickered between his own fingers, tapping at his head. _You're monstrous_ , and he moaned low, near to the earth. _"Please."_

The sweep of Stef's tongue, soft after dry touches, giving where his twisting fingers took, was close to overwhelming. Pleasure ran through his core, like fire, like blood and magic. In the fading light he watched Stef's lips close over him, again and again. He felt his cock grasped at the base, rough touch over tight tuned nerves. And the softness over him, the hard turn inside - _so close to enough - and you know it - you know me - you want me like this. Want me._ And he let himself bask in it - that radiant, singleminded _lust_ , Stef's need to touch him and taste him too urgently for romance or even a roof overhead.

"Stef -" and he felt himself tightening and could barely breathe. Stef's squeezed his cock firm between his lips and the peak of Van's pleasure ripped through him. He arched, and slipped deep into Stef's mouth, stifling his cries against his own sleeve.

He watched the stars circle around him, with his eyes closed. When he looked up, dazed and satisfied, he found Stef sat on the moss beside him. Crosslegged, his hard cock slipping through his untied clothes. He tapped two fingers to Vanyel's lips. "Now say thank you."


End file.
